"We bonzoed after our set," Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot ChiliPeppers told MTV recently, by way of explaining how the bandmissed the mayhem that marred the last day of Woodstock '99. Tobonzo, as any roadie will tell you, is to fly out of townimmediately after a performance, in the favored style of LedZeppelin, whose drummer--John (Bonzo) Bonham--died in 1980 afterdowning 40 measures of vodka and choking on vomit (his own).

Sports television, like rock-and-roll, is full of suchlarger-than-life figures, people--and a few institutions--solegendary that their very names have entered the lexicon. TheCivil War gave us Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, whose surnameand muttonchops inspired the word sideburns. But sportstelevision has given us many more coinages, including...

BEANO vb.: To make prognostications that are wildly off themark, and to do so with a convincing combination of affabilityand gravitas, in the manner of Beano Cook, the lovable ESPNcollege football analyst who shares his first name with apopular brand of flatulence remedy. Hypothetical usage: "After Ibeano, I've got to bonzo," Peter Gammons told his producer.

JACKLASH n.: A combination of whiplash (incurred whileattempting to follow the abrupt goings and comings of ABCcollege football announcer Keith Jackson) and backlash (againstJackson's returning to television after his seasonlongvaledictory tour of 1998).

SUPERSTATIONARY adj.: Of or relating to a person in a conditionof temporary paralysis caused by extended exposure to theAtlanta Braves, a club that has won four National Leaguepennants and one World Series in the 1990s, during which timethe overwhelming majority of its games have been nationallytelevised, and yet a team remaining--inexplicably--souninteresting as to render TBS viewers catatonic.

SAMNESIA n.: Short-term memory loss among sports directors andeditors, who temporarily forget the existence of all storiessave the Sammy Sosa-Mark McGwire home run race, which thus leadsevery sportscast and sports section, regardless of the day'sother events.

NOTRE REPUBLIC n.: The United States of America, which isannually treated to the national telecasting of every Notre Damefootball game, though the Fighting Irish have not finished aseason with a Top 10 ranking in six years or won a nationaltitle since the Reagan Administration. (Cf. Superstationary.)